Disclaimer: I own a TV that doesn't work in the UK unless plugged into a digital satellite receiver, because TV signals are transmitted differently in its home country of Australia. I do not own Stargate SG1, Quantum Leap, nor any other tv series.

Reviewers: HUGE APOLOGIES!! And big thank yous!! I honestly didn't mean to leave you hanging this long, but a combination of real life and a confusing lack of motivation kept knocking this off its top spot. I didn't realise how many of you there were out there in internet land either – I'm amazed! Here, have a mince pie :)

I think I may have bitten off more than I want to chew with this weird 1-POV-per-chapter format I'm using – it would have been fine on a shorter story, but it's getting a little annoying now. Still, if I don't finish what I've started it'll eat at me for the rest of the fic! As such some chapters may be part-plot, part-interlude as the storyline fiddles its way around the different characters and their personalities before getting on with the action. Thank you for your patience!

Oh yes, and thanks to all who pointed out that there are 9 chevrons, not 7 – It make complete sense but for some reason I never realised it before. Doh!

P.S. I have purchased for myself an early Xmas pressie – paid subscription to If you haven't yet done so yourselves (I took over a year, so I in't criticising!) consider it a potentially worthwhile investment – after all, life wouldn't be quite so much fun without now would it? :)

September 26th, 1998 – Stallions Gate

Tina's POV

Why why why do bad days get worse and worse with every passing hour? It seemed to be one of those petty yet immutable laws of the universe, affecting even the least significant aspects of the aforementioned bad day. Although – as even Tina knew – it was the small things that were the most important, and a truly bad day was made up of many small things going wrong, cascading on into bigger things that would also go wrong. Like that butterfly whajimmy with tornadoes and stuff… or was it a moth? Either way this was shaping up to be a very bad day, she decided as she drove into town.

It all started when Al came home the night before. Tina had been asleep in bed, as one would be at that godforsaken hour (unless of course there was no Leapee in the Waiting Room, in which case the pair of them would probably be out partying or doing unspeakable things all over the house), and… mmm… what was she griping about again? Oh that's right – Al's tossing and turning! Because he didn't just come in late, oh no, he wanted a chat. At 2am on a Sunday morning when they both had to do overtime the next day! In which case it was really all Jack's fault, because if he hadn't Leaped into the Waiting Room so close to a weekend she and Al would have been having fun last night instead of getting ratty with each other at 2 in the morning. Hmph.

So Al came home at some ridiculous hour (considering the situation back at Project Quantum Leap) and he wanted a chat and – and this was the worst part – he spent the rest of the night either tossing and turning, or snoring like a hamster lumber jacking in the woods. Not that Tina had ever heard a hamster lumber jacking in the woods, but if she ever did she was sure that it would sound like Al's snoring last night.

Then she'd been rudely awakened at 6.30am by the alarm. The extra loud alarm that was designed to break through Calavicci-Martinez-O'Farrell-style hangovers. And the sun wasn't even up! And it was a Sunday! Ok, so Sam might be travelling to another planet 'today', but from what Al had said the night before she'd gathered that he was pretty confident about the whole thing. Maybe Al was just worried for his best friend, which was really sweet, but it was still damned inconsiderate to keep your girlfriend awake all night and set the alarm for 6.30am!!!!

Muttering for all she was worth, Tina gave up looking for a space and double-parked as close to her favourite coffee shop as she dared. A morning like this deserved a tall mocha with two shots of espresso. And cream on top. Maybe even sprinkles if they had some. She slammed the car door shut, reopened it to get her purse, and slammed it again (twice as loudly) before realising that nice old Mrs Garcia who always sat outside the general store was dressed in her very best clothes, and staring at her. Was her hair out of place? Oh, what did it matter? It wasn't as if she was going to be giving Al the benefit of her usual coy flirting today, not after last night's show.

Suddenly, bells started ringing in the tower of the old Spanish-style church on the other side of the square, and Mrs Garcia pushed herself up from the bench with an arthritic groan. Tina idly wondered who was getting married, then snapped back to reality. Double-parking at wasn't unusual in this street – the Stallions Gate complex was filled with scientists after all, and this was the only one decent coffee shop within 10 miles – but on a Sunday? Those weren't wedding bells, they were calling the faithful into morning mass! Including Mauro the sexy Italian barista from Napoli! No mocha with cream, and no Mauro! Bad day syndrome had struck again.

Back on the road, Tina pondered the plague upon Earth that was the male species. Considering her frame of mind it would be fair to say that Tina's scientific analysis was by no means as objective as she would generally strive to be, but her little voices of reason had given up pointing that out a long time ago. Her statistically insignificant sample of the aforementioned male species consisted of Al, Gooshie, Sam, Mauro and Jack – though at least they were equally split between military, scientific, genius, sexy and… complete idiot. Though the title of complete idiot could belong to more than one of them.

Her first port of call was Al. Dear Al, boyfriend of many years, married God only knew how many times, occasionally hinted that he might love her, but with nary a chance of ever proposing because he was still too cut up over his first wife Beth. Oh yes, and there was his infidelity, and his infuriating habit of letting Project Quantum Leap have just as much free rein as he could allow then suddenly yanking it back in as soon as that Kinsey yelled "jump!". The fact that they could all lose their jobs if he didn't was beside the point.

Men!

Tina accelerated and she moved on to her next target: Gooshie. Sweet, funny without realising it, a little too easy to offend, but brilliant in his own way. And bad breath. That was a real sticking point. That and – let's face it – he couldn't hold a candle up to Al when it came to the horizontal tango. A nice man, that was Gooshie. So nice, so cute in his nervousness, so irritating in his complete obsession with his work sometimes, and the only time he ever got mad was when someone – ok, Tina – borrowed his graphics tablet for a day. Maybe a few days. It was Project property wasn't it? Not his… But even then he hadn't even gotten properly mad, which was what she'd been fishing for – proof that he actually had a temper and wasn't so… so… nice!

Men!

And then there was Sam. What a sweetheart – handsome, the smartest person she'd ever met, somehow managed to put up with Al as a best friend so he must be incredibly patient (a little like herself, Tina decided). But then Sam had never flirted with her… not even subtly. Was it because she was Al's girl? She knew she was desirable, hell even testosterone-deficient Gooshie fancied the pants off her, but not Sam – oh no. Or was it because he was already taken? Not that she wanted him to actually give in and have an affair with her – because she knew what it was like when a husband destroyed an entire relationship like that and it hurt y'know, it really hurt – but some acknowledgment would be nice. Looking is fine, just not touching, so get on with some looking damn it!

Men!

Who's next? Oh… Mauro. All man. Totally and utterly. One big hunk of complete maleness. Even other men knew it, like his other half, Enzo. Why were all the true sex gods gay? Not that she'd ever even kissed Mauro (air kisses didn't count did they?), but that smoldering look in his eyes proved that the cliché had some basis in reality after all. She didn't need to touch that one to know he was a sex god. And Italian to boot – real Italian, born there, unlike descendents like Al. Mauro was probably the single most common cause for women in this area to go to confession, seeking absolution for their impure thoughts, and somehow he was still allowed through the doors of the church! Maybe the priest played for the same side, Tina mused, a bitter smile twisting her lips.

Men!

Slamming on the brakes, Tina halted just before the security gate that guarded the entrance to the Stallions Gate Complex. Normally she'd smile sweetly at the young men on duty, but today they ranked about as highly as a wasp on her list. It wasn't just Al who'd caused her bad mood, it was the entire male species. All of them would bear the brunt of her displeasure!

And on to the real problem of the moment, that Jack O'Neill. Certain people had conveniently forgotten that he'd not only been incredibly uncooperative on arrival, but that he'd tried to kill Al! Ok so when push came to shove he hadn't, but he'd come damned close to it! Poor Gooshie tiptoed around the man like he was a cobra, and yet Al – who was supposed to be in charge of everything including staff welfare – was now busily making friends with him! And Jack, damn him, was a sarcastic military half-wit with no apparent appreciation of the fact that they were trying to save his life!! This project wasn't all about national security, no matter how hard the Senate tried, it was about science!

Tina slammed the car door shut with such vehemence that she set off the alarm on the one next door. She didn't know who it belonged to and she didn't care. Probably a man who needed a big powerful vehicle to flatter his ego and make up for deficiencies in other areas. The guards could deal with its high-pitched whining, she huffed, she had to get to work. On a Sunday.

MEN!

Sometimes they made her want to give it all up and become a lesbian. Some of them couldn't even be real men. Some of them were just too damned faithful. Some of them were entirely unavailable for different reasons. And some… oooooooh… some of them just made her mad. Scratch that. All of them made her mad. And because of them, she'd had very little sleep, no coffee, was coming into work on a Sunday, had to deal with some military drone hovering around her workspace all day, and may have even gotten a speeding ticket on the way in.

And now she was here. Project Quantum Leap. The lift doors swung open and Tina stepped into the passageway, noting immediately that only the usual Marine guards were on duty. No other staff had been called in today, that much was certain (many scientists were dedicated enough to come in on a Saturday, though the majority of yesterday's batch probably hadn't planned to get caught in a lock-down as well), only those who had the displeasure of direct contact with the current Leapee. Yet another reason why knowing 4 of her 5-man sample was bad for a woman's health and sanity.

Tina took a deep breath and began to jab her pass-code into the keypad, waiting for clearance to enter the Control Room, but was interrupted by the door swinging open before she'd even finished.

"Hi Tina! See you in a minute – you'd never guess – got to rush! Bye!"

"Wha?"

Her jaw hung open for a few moments as she watched Dr Verbeena Beeks running – running! – down the hallway in some kind of hyperactive disarray.

Turning her attention back to the Control Room, Tina stepped through and all anti-male thoughts were discarded as irrelevant as she turned her attentions to an abnormally cheerful Gooshie.

"What's happened?"

"Good morning, Tina! Oh, Dr Beeks' car alarm has gone off in the car park and it won't shut off," he explained, oblivious to the heat rising in Tina's cheeks. She thanked her lucky stars that she'd bothered to put make-up on this morning, particularly her foundation. "There's also some other news that you might like to hear…"

This wasn't like Gooshie, teasing her this way. She was sure that he knew she hated being teased by now, and that she never forgave anyone unless they had the biggest, juiciest piece of gossip on the planet… plus after her man-hating session on the way in, today was not the day to beat about the bush.

"Gooshie…" she growled menacingly.

Something in Gooshie's body language tensed – he must have finally picked up that Tina was in a bad mood. "Uh… uh… Jack…"

"Jack what?!" Tina fumed. It was just like Gooshie to get in a tizz like this, and if it was anything like yesterday… Her heart skipped a beat. Where was Al? Had he? Again?! He might infuriate her, but she still lo-… lo-… liked him. A bit. Sometimes. "He hasn't taken Al hostage again has he?"

"No, Tina, he hasn't."

Al's voice was like balm to Tina's enraged and panicky soul, at least for a moment.

She turned to find him on the other side of the room and ran over to give him a big hug, then slapped him.

"What the hell was that for?!" He exclaimed, rubbing his cheek and wincing.

"Don't you ever wake me up at 6.30am on a Sunday ever again!" Tina thundered. "Between that and your snoring I had no sleep, and Mauro's gone to mass!"

Al blinked in confusion. "Mauro? Who's Mauro?"

"Coffee shop," Gooshie supplied, earning himself twin glares from the couple. "Er, I put a pot on earlier Tina – I'll go get you some? Um… right…" He slipped out of the Control Room in a hurry, clearly glad to get away.

"Can we start again, please?" Al pleaded, as Tina turned her glare back towards him. "I'm sorry if I kept you up all night, but I was really worried about Sam –"

"Oh, Sam Sam Sam," Tina interrupted. "Sam'll be fine. You said yourself that he wasn't worried about going through that Stargate thing –"

"Yeh well, he didn't need to be –"

"See! I told you, just let the man get on with it and all will be well! Now, do we really have to be here on a –"

"Sunday? Yes. And can I finish, please?"

Tina's eyes narrowed. Maybe she'd missed something here. What was that gossip that Gooshie had seem fit to dangle before her without actually passing it on?

"Ok…"

"Thank you," her long-suffering partner sighed, pausing a moment to gather his thoughts while Tina awaited impatiently. "Well, I arrived early and set up the Imaging Chamber so I could at least watch Sam go through this wormhole, even if I couldn't see him off –"

"Right, so I lost sleep because you wanted to wave Sam goodbye, is that it?" Tina accused, crossing her arms and tapping her feet in a way that she knew Al understood as 'get on with it!'.

"Only partially, as it turns out," Al continued, a smug grin on his face. "Y'see, I saw Sam starting to go through the 'Gate, but then the signal cut out –"

"'Cos he was on another planet and Ziggy can't transmit that far – right –"

"Wrong."

"Excuse me?" Tina was taken aback. "You mean she can?! Ziggy, how –"

"No, Dr –"

A piercing whistle cut through the air, causing Tina to clap her hands to her ears.

"Hello? I said let me finish, damn it," Al bridled. "If you don't want to know what's going on, just tell me and you can head home to that bed you obviously love more than your work!"

"Uh…"

"Fine, just go then – I'll see you this evening," Al stated, pointedly turning his back on her and examining a monitor. "Is she still there, Ziggy?"

"Don't answer that!" Tina wailed, her confusion almost unbearable now. She hated being the last person to know, and she hated being ignored even more. "I promise to be quite until you're finished this time. See – cross my heart."

Al swung round on his chair, eyes rolling as she made the playground gesture. "You'll listen till I'm done?"

"I promised didn't I?" Tina was indignant, and would have protested further had a look from Al not silenced her. Since when could he jump from being in the doghouse to putting her in there so quickly? It wasn't fair!

"Hmm. Well here's what happened," Al continued, obviously eager to share despite their disagreement. "That Teal'c guy was pushing Sam's wheelchair through the event horizon, as I was saying, and suddenly the image vanished – just as we expected – but the next thing I knew, Dr Beeks was running into the Control Room with eyes as big as plates, saying that Sam had Leaped!"

"What?!" Tina yelped before clapping her hands over her mouth. "Sorry," she mumbled through her fingers.

"Right… well it wasn't just that he'd Leaped – someone else had already taken Jack's place."

Tina's eyes widened, but her hands remained firmly in place. Jack was gone, but what if the new Leapee was just as bad… or worse?

"It was a seamless switch – one minute Verbeena was sharing breakfast with Jack, the next his glass of juice is dropping out of thin air and there's a body on the bed. Amazing – I've watched Ziggy's tapes over and over, and it's practically instantaneous. Look, I'll show you."

Tina was itching to ask who was in the Waiting Room, but she decided to wait patiently in case Al got mad again and quietly watched the video that Ziggy called up, smiling and nodding in al the right places. Get on with it, she prayed silently.

"Now thankfully this guy is a little more talkative than Jack was to start with – though he's still kinda suspicious," Al went on, finally. "I've mentioned Kinsey to him, since that got a reaction out of Jack. He definitely recognised the name, so I tried a few things that Jack talked about like that NID group, and the erm, Asgard… but at that point he really clammed up, and –"

"Coffee's here!" Gooshie gushed as he paraded through the Control Room bearing a huge mug. "Sorry it took so long, but it is fresh," he added, his eyes as cheerful as they had been earlier – probably because Jack O'Neill was gone, Tina realised. She could relate to that.

"Thank –" she glanced at Al and received a wry nod. Normally he'd get a nasty response for something like that, making her feel that she had to ask permission to talk! Hah! But there was still a little more gossip to extract. "Thank you very much, Gooshie – you are a star." Unlike Al, to whom she redirected her attention. "You were saying?"

Another body bundled into the Control Room suddenly, interrupting Tina's ongoing struggle to find out what the hell was going on around here.

"Al!" Dr Beeks exclaimed. "Is everything ok?"

"Yes, all's good – I was just filling Tina in," Al replied casually, avoiding Tina's gaze. She knew that he knew that this delaying tactic would be annoying her even further. She opened her mouth, but he carried on with a glimmer in his eye. "How's your car?"

"Fine, fine," the psychologist answered. "I don't know what the fuss was about – well, the alarm went off, but there aren't any scratches or dents. Apparently someone parked next to it just before it started, an angry woman who'd already rattled the guards by nearly crashing into their booth, but still –"

Tina fought her instincts to cry shame on whoever was spreading malicious lies about her driving ability!! She hadn't even come close to hitting the booth, even if she had had to emergency brake to avoid the barrier, but then Al was looking at her very suspiciously now and he knew her temper. A sugary smile might put him off the scent… just keep quiet, Tina ordered herself.

"– go back in and talk to him?" Dr Beeks finished.

"Sure, go right ahead – you're the first person he saw, it's worth a shot," Al nodded his agreement.

Dr Beeks left the room and Gooshie resumed his quiet typing in the far corner, while Tina exalted in having found out just a little more about their mystery guest. It was a he! Another male – but maybe a better one than last time, if Verbeena was happy to go it alone in there. She turned back to Al, her eyes pleading, knowing that she would only be able to stay silent a little longer if he didn't spill the beans now!

Al, to his complete and utter discredit, laughed at the sight of her. "Tina, you're a highly intelligent woman – practically a genius – so why are you so… so… female?"

That did it.

Tina rose from her seat, enraged. "Excuse me?"

"I don't mean that in a bad way, Tina – I just mean that you like gossiping in the break room, you have highs and lows more quickly than I can keep track of –"

"Have you ever heard of PMT?" She nearly yelled. "It's not my fault, and it's not like you ever complain about my femininity at home!"

Al's eyes flickered sideways, presumably toward Gooshie. "See? There you go again – calm down, babe. You'll give yourself a heart attack, or split a nail – I don't know which you'd think was worse…" He rolled his eyes and sighed. "Look, I was just making a light hearted observation. You are an intelligent, professional woman working for one of the most cutting edge projects in the world – but sometimes you act like Dolly Parton one of those nutty movies she does. High heels, whole cupboards full of make-up, spending hours in the mall, hormones, trading other people's secrets for the satisfaction of knowing something before someone else does. It's a contradiction, that's all."

"It's not a contradiction Al, it's me," Tina stated flatly. She was hurt. Sure she liked to gossip a little with the girls, but that was no reason to call her Dolly Parton! All those years of standing by him, and this was how Al saw her? "Would you really prefer me to be as staid as Donna all the time?"

"No, no, of course not!" Al's eyes practically bulged out of his head. "You… it wouldn't be you!"

"Well then, I guess this is all part of my charm then, isn't it?" She replied smugly. "Like it or lump it."

"Uh… huh… uh…"

"So, you were telling me about this Leapee?" She continued, realising that by some miracle she might have regained the upper hand.

"Uh… yeh, he gave us his name so we know he's part of Jack's team – but he won't tell us what day it is for him or anything like that. Ziggy's having the same trouble locating Sam as she did before, which we're guessing might mean that we got a straight swap with someone else at the SGC, due to some reaction caused by Sam touching the event horizon. I might have to pay the SGC another visit on the same timeline as before, go look in his office… or something."

Al's voice dwindled into nothing, and he actually looked a little depressed. For all her dizziness, Tina could understand his situation – two Leaps, hard to trace and even harder to pinpoint a purpose for. Not only that, but now there were two secret projects involved, both of which had suffered under Kinsey and dealt with what most considered science fiction.

"There, there, honey," she soothed, hugging him softly. "Don't worry, we'll find him, and he will fix everything up and move on. That's what always happens, isn't it? Why would we fail now? God's on our side, right?"

"Yeh… God, time, fate… whatever…" Al sighed heavily. "He's been gone for so long though…"

"True, true – but that's going to be fixed too," Tina replied fervently. "He'll come back to us someday."

"You believe that?"

"Completely."

The pair of them sat in silence for a moment, and Tina reflected on her earlier bitching session about all men. Yes, they could be infuriating at times, but life would be pretty boring otherwise. She had one here who really did care for her in his own way – well, two if she counted Gooshie… but they really weren't all that suited to each other – and she and Al were. It was funny that after all these years she could realise that after a weird fight other whether she was a genius or Dolly Parton.

Life was strange, especially hers.

Hmm…

"Hey!" She tried to rouse Al, who had buried his head in her bosom. Maybe he hadn't slept too well last night either.

The reply was muffled. "Wha?"

"You never told me his name…" Tina reminded him.

"Didn't I?" Al mumbled. "It's that archaeologist guy, Daniel Jackson."

"Oh… Ziggy, could you show me his details please?"

"On screen."

The computer's voice was disapproving, presumably her way of commenting on the couple's tendency to have a lovers' spat in 'her' Control Room. Tina merely smirked as she looked over the photo and re-read Dr Jackson's resume.

"Very nice…" she purred.

"Tina…" Al muttered warningly.

"What? I'm just doing some research," she replied innocently.

"Right. Just don't try an unsupervised practical, ok?"

She almost choked on her coffee laughing. "He's cute, but too young for me… honest."

"Hah!" Al chuckled, burying his head once again.

Tina just smiled. Maybe bad days did get better after all. Especially without Jack O'Neill in the picture.